Info For

Art Gallery

The Student Center Art Gallery is located on the 1st floor of the building, on the west end, adjacent tothe Office of Student Life. Some pieces are displayed in other areas of the building. The Student Center purchases student art pieces on a yearly basis and has collected artwork from various student art shows over the past decade. All pieces are purchased from students enrolled in Ball State University and gives tribute to the talent of the artists enrolled within Ball State programs.

The Gallery space is not available for traveling or special shows.

Artist Name: James Schwab

Major: Drawing

Title: Phototropism's Folly

Pasodoble

These pieces are made by James Schwab, who is currently pursuing a BFA in Drawing at the Ball State School of Art in Muncie, Indiana. Schwab was born in Rockford, Illinois and has spent the majority of his life in the midwest.

Art has been a predominant focus for Schawb since a very young age. As a child who was constantly immersed in a sketchbook, creation of imagery has always been a way for him to enjoy the catharsis of self-expression. Although he enjoys dabbling in a variety of mediums, his work is largely 2-Dimensional, utilizing both wet and dry media.

Aggressive, heavy-handed approaches to art production fascinate Schwab as he finds the gestures left by an assertive hand to be visceral and emotionally evocative. Because of this, his work tends to embrace unique qualities of the material being used and celebrate the evidence mark making. Pasodoble is a charcoal drawing dealing with inner turmoil and a power struggle between conflicting emotions. Phototropism’s Folly utilizes intricate pen and ink techniques to illustrate the dangers of blind devotion by drawing parallels between a human and phototropic insects that spend their evenings bashing into light sources.

Artist Name: Cassandra Copenhaver

Major: Drawing

Title: A Gardener

Finding Your Roots

Regrowth

Cassandra Copenhaver is a recent graduate of Ball State University who earned her BFA in drawing and a minor in marketing. Originally, I’m from Cicero, Indiana she now lives in Parker City, Indiana working as an artist.

The inspiration for A Gardener came from personal exploration into her generalized anxiety disorder. In this piece, she uses imagery symbolically to illustrate her relationship with anxiety. For instance, Copenhaver chose to depict Gerbera Daisies in different levels of decay and obscurity. Dead flowers are meant to show the “death” of unmet goals. Fresh flowers are meant to represent unwavering hope of living up to certain goals or expectations. Meanwhile, obscured flowers are meant to show unrealistic and unclear ideals.

Finding Your Roots depicts someone Copenhaver was very close to at the time of its making. Inspired by her energy and friendship, Copenhaver wanted to show how college life affects students. From her experience, Ball State became a home away from home. Before starting her undergraduate degree she had never moved. This made Ball State a daunting place at first, but eventually the place she discovered herself.

Regrowth was done as a study within Copenhaver's work involving identity. She arrived at this body of work from seeing firsthand how nature and nurture have intertwined after forming relationships with her biological family. As an adoptee, she has the unique opportunity to see how her genetic roots and upbringing have separately effected who she is today. This series stems from my perspective as an adoptee and the idea that identity is also formed from happenstance and interaction.

Artist Name: Cara Calanni

Major: Photography and Performance Dance

Title: Conscious Movement

Cara Calanni is a recent graduate of Ball State University, 2014, from Cleveland, Ohio with a BFA emphasis in Photography and BS in Performance Dance. Conscious Movement was inspired by the history of Photography and Dance. The introduction of movements in dance and evolving technology in photography work together. Being able to capture and show those changes through images.

Artist Name: Rob Shwartz

Major: Glass

Title:Bowed Dual Towers

Medium: Glass

Rob Shwartz grew up in Fort Wayne Indiana where he started to shape my passion for art. Schwartz developed a passion for architecture. His college career at Ball State actually started as an architecture student but then decided to change his path by pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communications. Shwartz took a glass for a studio elective, and then never left. His glass work started by making a variety of different objects that pushed him to learn all the techniques he could. Shwartz's passion for art and design comes from the need to create and inspire.

Artist Name: Collette Spears

Major: Ceramics

Title:Double-Walled Teapot Set

Collette Spears grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and graduated from Ball State University in Spring 2014 with a BFA in Ceramics, a BA in Psychology, and minors in Latin and Classical Culture. This teapot set is a part of her double-walled body of work, which focuses on therapeutic expulsion through process, pattern, and carving.

Artist Name: Even Huff

Major: Sculpture

Title:021214032614

Evan Huff is a Ball State University alum from Greenville, Ind. He graduated with a Bachelors degree in art and a concentration in sculpture in May 2014. The piece is called 021214032614, which captures the conception of the idea to the date completed of the given piece.

He is influenced by his experiences within the world around him. He is also heavily influenced by human form as it flows from one area to another and contorts as it bends or twists. He finds the S Curve and C Curve indicated in his work. The musculature makeup of the human body and how it looks and moves under the skin is also demonstrated in his work.

In addition to human figures, he find influence in natural geological formations. These mostly include sea caves and canyons – Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and sea caves off the Washington Coast and in the Great Lakes. He enjoys the idea of the “mark of the maker.” As wind and water erode parts of the Earth, leaving their mark where they flow or contact the world, he left his mark on his art through texturing.

Evan's art is his response to what is around him. There are a lot of various stimuli surrounding him every day. It flows into his brain, and he has to interact with it. Day after day, it is being compiled and learned. In order for him to be successful, he interacts with the world through form and design. His art flows from that subconscious level of understanding into his art.

This particular piece is one of three pieces he never sketched. He created it completely intuitively. He didn’t have an idea of what the completed product would look like, he just started gluing wood together. This piece started as rough wood – oak, hardrock maple and ash – from the lumber mill and required lamination in order to create the block. In the process of laminating the different woods together, he had to take the lumber and mill it down so it had smooth sides. He then glued up separate pieces. In required stage glue up, he completed one glue up every day for seven days. The reason for the stage glue up was because of the dimensions of the wood and nature of the piece.Evan chose to create the piece intuitively as an exploration of form. He also wanted to see what graphical elements would be created as he carved through different kinds of wood. Many of his pieces were becoming just a form as he deeply carved into them. However, he was interested in what happened to the form when he followed the natural wood through his carvings. Something was happening with the lines of the piece as he carved with the natural grain and inherent personality. It went back to the C Curves and S Curves he wanted throughout his show. It also went back to the movement of his body in harmony with the movement of the wood.

Artist Name: Ben Johnson

Major: Fine Arts

Title: Tornado

Medium: Blown Glass

This off hand blown glass vessel was made by Ben Johnson the first MFA student in glass at Ball State University. This piece was inspired by Johnson’s interest in historical Venetian glass blowing techniques. The line work in the piece called "cane" is a multiple step process where the lines are first generated by pulling the molten glass out into thin rods of glass. Once the pencil sized rods have been created they are reheated and then fused onto the bubble of molten glass. Once fused the piece is manipulated into the desired effect then blown up into its final form.

Artist Name: Molly Jean Gruninger

Major:Visual Communication

Title: Dissolution

In this piece entitled Dissolution, the aim is to question the role of technology in modern society and the predominance it has taken over natural forms of human capability. While technology has many benefits and helps to lead healthier, more efficient lives, it’s important to realize when a useful tool becomes one of dependence. At what point does society begin to sacrifice the gifts that give the freedom to express, build, fix, learn, and communicate without the aid of a machine? It’s important to preserve the unique quality that only the touch of a hand, sound of a voice, and substance and smell of physical presence can bring. As technology sucks us further into its grasp, it threatens to swallow what remains of a beautiful culture. If society takes the time to develop, rather than invest all its energy in building crutches, it will have the ability and freedom to stand independently.

Artist Name: Damon Butler

Major: Photography

Medium: Photography

This work focuses on the intimate relationship between humans and their environment, specifically natural landscapes. Ethereal matter is used in the form of light that the camera captures during long exposures. Light plays an intricate role in balancing these photos. The ribbons of light connect these two entities in a literal bond, yet also represent the spiritual association the subject has with this special area. The bond created is only captured in its entirety by the camera; these lights do not exist in any way, yet live and breathe life inside the realm of the photo.

These images are produced using found or natural light to illuminate the environment, while the vibrant spiritual lighting is created using common flashlights and other lighting equipment. Like these images, the tools used to construct them are also engineered to create a certain effect. Long string-like lights are employed to imply highly energized areas, while the free flowing streamers represent the continuous potential energy occupied in every element. Highlighted areas in the landscape are drowned in color to amplify their importance.

From the moments during their creation to the viewer’s interpretation, experience is the essence of these images. The attempt is for the viewer to contemplate the relationship between themselves and their own meditative nook of the world.

Artist: Kellie Kuratko

Major: Fine Arts and Photography

Title: Absorbed

"Absorbed" is a series of images I photographed of the television. The camera is set to a very high f-stop and a very slow shutter speed usually around two to three seconds which then gives the images the movement and blurriness you see. They each captured the color and abstractions we don't normally think of while watching television. This piece represents being absorbed in today's technology.

Artist: Joshua McGarvey

Major:Fine Arts

Title:Globular Indulgence

This piece is an abstract exploration of materials. As a printmaker, this piece is one completed outside of normal conditions, so the piece is much more open than his usual work. The piece was highly influenced by the work of Terry Winters.